


Survivor's Guilt

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: joss_las, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-25
Updated: 2008-03-25
Packaged: 2019-03-21 04:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13732812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: They wouldn't be defeated by a cheap motel, not after what they'd just been through.





	Survivor's Guilt

Somehow, Andrew had always thought world-saving heroes got to stay in better places than no-name motels on the outskirts of Lincoln, Nebraska. The room didn't smell--and after last night, that was a concern--and, judging from the blast of cold air that hit him when he opened the door, the a/c worked, but the wallpaper was peeling in a spot near the water-stained ceiling, and the edges of the bedspread were frayed.  
  
Still, they wouldn't be defeated by a cheap motel, not after what they'd all just been through. "The heroic spirit," Andrew began, turning around to address Xander, "remains--"  
  
And then he broke off mid-sentence, because what he'd been about to say next was, "--remains indomitable in the face of adversity."  
  
Xander didn't look indomitable. Xander didn't look like a hero, either, even though Andrew knew he really  _was_  one. Andrew had been there. But what Xander looked like was--well, a guy who'd been sitting in a hot, stuffy bus all day with a bunch of teenage girls, trying not to get carsick; a guy who'd been wearing the same clothes for three days because that was what they  _had_ ; a guy who'd totally ignored his doctor's instructions and had obviously, from the way the skin was red just beneath, been scratching the still-healing skin under his eyepatch.  
  
And a guy whose One True Love had just died a hero's death when it probably should have been Andrew who died. Nobody would  _miss_  him, not really; they might not be happy he was dead, but nobody would look like  _that_  because he was gone. "Sorry," he said, meaning, mostly, "Sorry I started to say something stupid." He only partly meant, "Sorry it's my fault Anya's dead."  
  
Xander hitched one shoulder up in a pathetic attempt at a shrug, and then dropped the ShopKo bag he'd been carrying onto one of the beds. Andrew had a bag like that, too; they all did. Everyone with a credit card had chipped in on the shopping trip; nobody wanted to go another day of washing their underwear in a motel sink. He dropped onto the bed, too, which Andrew decided to take as a sign that he could have the first shower. When he came out, Xander was still lying on the bed in the exact same position he'd been in twenty minutes ago.  
  
Andrew got dressed while Xander was in the shower, stuffing his dirty clothes into the plastic bag. They were going to find a laundromat tomorrow before they left town; he could offer to do Xander's laundry.  
  
Right, Andrew, he scoffed, because doing someone's laundry is going to make up for not dying when you were supposed to. When you deserved to. The thing was, Andrew wasn't all that good at making things up to people. Before Buffy had showed him the Error of His Ways, he hadn't done a lot of admitting he'd screwed up, even, except to Warren. And Xander wasn't Warren. Xander was one of the good guys, and Andrew was trying to remember that Warren was a creep and a psycho and the guy who'd led him into evil. And not, really not ever, Andrew's boyfriend, which was harder to say, sometimes, even to himself, than the psycho-creep part.  
  
But Warren, Andrew had apologized to. And Warren, sometimes, had let Andrew make things up to him, and sometimes Andrew wondered if one of the reasons he made sure Warren knew when he'd screwed up is that those were the only times Warren really let Andrew near him. Warren thought the stuff Andrew did--offered to do, volunteered to do,  _wanted_  to do--were gross and humiliating and a punishment, and Andrew had used every milligram of sneakiness in his body to make sure Warren kept feeling that way.  
  
It wouldn't be like that with Xander, Andrew knew. It wouldn't be Andrew pretending he was being punished, but it might be Andrew, getting to make Xander feel a little better. Xander deserved to feel better. Xander was  _nothing_  like Warren, except in the way Andrew's stomach clenched with not-quite-fear when he was around.  
  
Andrew wanted to try to make Xander feel better, wanted to make up for being here when Anya wasn't, when Anya was so much better than he was, so in spite of that clench of not-quite fear, when Xander came out in jeans and a clean polo shirt, and sat down on the edge of the bed to put his shoes back on, Andrew asked himself,  _What would James T. Kirk do?_  Okay, it would be some hot female Romulan commander, probably, unless you believed the stuff you read on the Internet about him and Spock--which Andrew did  _not_ , and he'd read a  _lot_  of it just to make sure it was all stupid--but still, "What would Kirk do?" was a good question for situations like these, and so Andrew sat down next to him and said, carefully, "I could--if you wanted something else to think about, I could--" and put his hand on Xander's thigh, hoping Xander didn't notice how much his hand was sweating.  
  
But the hot Romulan probably wouldn't have grabbed Kirk's arm, yanking it away before his hand could get any further up. "Stop it," Xander growled, and Andrew realized how much he'd missed hearing Xander's voice, the past couple of days. "You can't fix  _anything_  like that," he added.  
  
"I know," Andrew said. "I don't care. I just want to help."  
  
" _I_  care," Xander said. "It can't--we can't be like that, Andrew, God, I can't do that to you." Whatever he might have said afterward was lost because Dawn was banging on the door and telling them to come have dinner with everyone else, and after dinner, Andrew came back to find out that Xander had switched rooms with Mr. Giles, because--Andrew was guessing--he couldn't stand to look at Andrew any more.  
  
The weird thing was, even being rejected like that, it felt more like Xander might care about him, one day, than it ever had with Warren. Then again, people were always telling Andrew he had a problem with reality, so maybe he was just imagining things again. He probably was.  
  
But maybe not.

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


End file.
